


song bird

by ravenhairedtrickster



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Other, real quick character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 02:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4002100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenhairedtrickster/pseuds/ravenhairedtrickster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's born this way, in the darkness, in the deep cold, the air stale and smelling of dirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	song bird

He's born this way, in the darkness, in the deep cold, the air stale and smelling of dirt. His memories are vague of this time, like all infants, reduced to fleeting moments, touches, words, the taste of fat, water loaded earth worms – the warmth of a fire, his mothers arms. 

The raids are, however, fresh in his mind. And those memories are chaos in shadow, screams, running, crawling, his mother corralling the others further into the deep, into the damp where their life supply lays. A muddy spring, earth water they call it. Precious.

He's alone after that, blind as the day he was born and left to the mercy of death, a severed head lain in his lap before they leave – their laughter often haunts his dreams.

Immortan Joe was a life saver, a life giver, but life comes not without cost, without debt. And he shrunk when his hands were presented, caked in blood but _perfect_. 

“A musician,” Joe breathed while Coma screamed at the touch of the midday sun. 

The Citadel is high, cut off from the rest of the wasteland. Coma thinks it would be beautiful if he could see out over it's rough edges, the younger war boys tell him the opposite. How it's ugly, dry, how it's a multitude of browns – but it's lost on him, he doesn't know colours. Coma can't make himself tell them otherwise, he enjoys listening to them talk. 

He's taught a strange instrument, a guitar, heavy in his hands and loud unlike anything he's ever heard. He strums it slowly and the noise reverberates through him, he _feels_ it and he likes it. 

Immortan Joe is an elusive presence at the edges of his being and for a long time Coma regards him as saviour, divine. The war boys certainly think that of him. But in the recesses of the Citadel, Coma finds him to be captor as well – only does he come by when a new piece is learnt and Coma preforms because he must, because survival is integrated into him and without Joe he would simply waste away. 

“Coma, Doof Warrior,” Joe says evenly, though he sounds as if he's been running and Coma rises at the title – the next words are expected. “We are to war, to hunt down an Imperator gone wrong.” 

He nods, waits, perched on the balls of his feet, long fingers already cradling his guitar. Joe's fingers startle him as they pull down his mask, an ode to his mother. It's secure when Joe moves away and Coma straightens, ready to be escorted to his rig. 

“Play loud my song bird,” Joe imparts.

Those fingers brush his jaw possessively and he listens to Joe's following departure. A moment later he stumbles between two war boys, and when they leave the Citadel, he bares his pointed teeth and laughs. 

Clever Joe, he thinks as he begins to play, a song bird, a creature trapped for the amusement of others – yes, he muses and plays angrily, his blood boiling with the adrenaline and heat and realization, he is a song bird and the Citadel is his cage.


End file.
